Best-Practices Leadership

A leader in an organization can’t do everyone’s job. Instead of micromanaging, strong leaders use organizational leadership to coordinate, communicate, motivate and delegate among employees and team members. For comprehensive organizational effectiveness, each individual needs to be seen as a contributor, with the leader at the helm.

As chief financial officer at Waste Management, Don Flynn raised millions so that the company could acquire hundreds of little haulers and build itself into an empire. When he died in 2011, his baby, LKQ, had $2.5 billion in sales.

Different employees crave different things from their managers. Here’s practical advice you can give the bosses in your organization. You’ll help them focus on the managerial qualities that matter most to employees—and forget about the window dressing workers don’t care about.

Guitar hero Brad Paisley admits that he sometimes finds it hard to relate to young musicians who move to Nashville primarily for fame and fortune. “As I’ve come to understand it, making music isn’t about competition,” he says. “It’s about collaboration. I am a player. And I play with people, not against them.”

John Adams was a founding father and second president of the United States, but perhaps his greatest acts of leadership were in recommending George Washington to be president, and John Marshall a justice of the Supreme Court.

While you’re Managing by Walking Around, throw in a dose of Managing by Walking in Their Shoes. The entire nation has witnessed what leaders can learn by spending time on the front lines, thanks to reality show “Undercover Boss.”

Sheena ­Iyengar and her fellow researchers at Columbia Business School set up a tasting booth near the entrance of a store, putting out either six choices of jam or 24 choices. They found that people were six times more likely to buy a jar of jam if they had only six choices versus 24. What are the implications for business leaders?

Roughly 85% of MBA graduates believe that “business people are well-qualified to solve the most pressing problems of the world,” according to the Passion & Purpose MBA survey. So, what does that mean for you? They want to work for leaders who share their passion for changing the world.

Nobody argues the fact that Robert McNamara was a genius. The Ford Motor Co. whiz kid who led the Pentagon into the Vietnam War, and the World Bank into unprecedented expansion, solved problems with sheer brains. But McNamara’s flaw may have been that, in a larger sense, he just didn’t “get it.”

Being an effective manager means confronting those “challenging” employees who, while typically good at their jobs, too often display unprofessional or downright obnoxious behavior. The best way to tackle such problems is to meet with employees right when you spot the problem behavior. Follow these guidelines, which have the side benefit of protecting the organization from employee claims that they weren’t treated fairly.

Tomorrow's Training:

Your employee handbook can be an invaluable organizational tool … or an employment lawsuit waiting to happen. And in recent years, Congress and state legislatures have been busy enacting laws that directly affect your employee handbook. If you haven't kept up, you could find yourself in court....Click here to find out more.